Home is where it hurts
by Flower-on-a-box
Summary: As she did the first step on the red carpet, in the middle of the flower petals, she saw him. There, in front of her, facing the altar. She had to concentrate, she had to stop thinking that it would never be the happiest day of her life. Can be read after "A breath of fresh air", as a sort of following but not as a second chapter.


_August 18, 2009._

Hermione looked at a young woman in front of her in a beautiful wedding dress. The satin-red bustier, covered with white lace, underlined her chest and on the broad white petticoat were stitched cascades of embroidery matching the corset. She looked amazing in it. Hermione's dress perfectly reflected her tastes and her eternal belonging to Gryffindor but she was feeling so different from this reflection

She finally sat in front of her dressing table, waiting for the final touch of makeup. She only had to close her eyes and hope that she was going to wake up. George came into the room and a smile bloomed on the young woman's face. The redhead sat next to her while laying a kiss on her forehead.

"So? How are you feeling?"

"A little bit stressed," she confessed with a tiny laugh. "but otherwise it's fine."

"Almost everyone is here," he said, "I met Blaise and Daphne. They told me that Theo was already there and said that Pansy would be here soon. Anyway, you have about fifteen minutes left, but Ginny will pick you up."

"Thank you, George."

When he left the room, the smile faded. A shadow fell on the eyes of the woman who stood up without looking at her reflection. It was too perfect compared to what she was feeling. The last minutes were probably the longest. Hermione was looking forward to being in front of the altar, looking forward to having the ring on her finger, but she was frightened, because this moment would never happen the way she always hoped. And many people knew it.

Ginny came through the door in her bridesmaid dress, her face shining. Hermione faced her as she took her in her arms. She had the gift of spreading her good mood and happiness, which brought a smile to Hermione's sad face.

"I am so happy! We will finally be alike!" The redhead exclaimed, raising her proper ring from the year before. "Come on, everyone is waiting for you."

Hermione went out and entered the wide staircase which led to the hall. They had rented a small estate to celebrate the union and the ceremony was going to take place in a large room with Gothic architecture. The young woman found her father near the door and clung to his arm as the last hope of escaping her destiny.

Okay, she said yes when he proposed because she had been unable to say anything else, and some piece of her heart had started beating again. She persuaded herself that she still loved him in some way, because otherwise she would be left alone, crying in silence.

As she did the first step on the red carpet, in the middle of the flower petals, she saw him. There, in front of her, facing the altar. She had to concentrate, she had to stop thinking that it would never be the happiest day of her life. She had to take some pleasure, because that was what she wanted for a while. Then she briefly closed her eyes, focusing on the best memories she had with him, and when she opened them again, he turned around and looked straight into her eyes.

Yes, she could not deny that he was handsome, in his black suit with his red tie and the rose in his pocket. Except it wasn't him she wanted to marry. He was more than happy, he seemed to live the happiest day ever. Ron Weasley was going to marry Hermione Granger.

The witch looked at her left. She saw the whole Weasley family reunited with Harry, a little further down were Luna, Neville, and more distant people that the young woman didn't know. On the right was her mother and behind, Blaise, Daphne, Pansy and Theo. Blaise gave her an understanding look that she immediately caught, because he knew, like most of the people here, that she had nothing to do with the man she was about to marry.

She finally arrived in front of Ron and the master of ceremonies began his speech. Everyone was listening, but Hermione was elsewhere. She wanted to think one last time about what had brought her here. She wanted to think about it for the last time before drawing a definitive line on this part of her life. So she let her eyes get lost in the bouquet of red and white roses that she didn't even remember she was holding in her hands.

.

_February 2001_

Hermione shared her life with the most loving man she had met. Although she had never thought that she would love him so much, she didn't want to leave him. They had been living together for a little over two years. After their mountain holidays the past year, they had gone to Australia for two weeks to visit Hermione's parents and to live differently from the wizarding world of London. The two lovebirds had taken a small apartment in Sydney and spent wonderful days in the wizarding district.

And then everything blew up because Draco never returned. The young man had managed to get an appointment with the director of an Australian multinational organization and wanted to offer a project in collaboration with his company in England. He had spent the afternoon there and had left the place as several people testified. Hermione had thought he had gone for a walk but he never came back.

The young woman had fallen into a state of depression, drowning in sorrow and suffering. His parents had welcomed her home during long months of unsuccessful researches and nervous breakdowns. The Gryffindor was utterly lost, but she had remained resilient, continuing to roam across the country. She was fighting a real battle against the people around her who had already given up. As the months passed, searches continued, but less and less.

And then, a total discouragement, the fear of reality that takes over, the weight of everything she didn't want to accept. Three years had passed and the authorities had declared that Draco Malfoy was dead, untraceable, gone. Hermione had been shattered because the news had been dropped like that, hard and freezing. In a way, she thought she had died too, her heart seemed to want to stop this interminable task that meant nothing.

The young woman had found herself so fragile, alive simply by the support of her friends. She turned to the strongest and most loving arms and finally she lived at the Burrow with the Weasleys. Ron had taken the opportunity. Yes, maybe it wasn't honest and very selfish, but he had managed to persuade himself that it was to help her.

That's how, after five years, Hermione let herself get lost in a one-way love, unable to refuse anything and accepting only to not be alone again. Ron had been her lifeline. He had spent all the time he had outside his work in the shop with his older brother with her, trying to make her happy. Even Harry and Ginny had not been so present because they had their family life to manage. Ron had been the one she had dreamed of at Hogwarts. That's why she had to marry him.

.

_August 18, 2009_

A heavy silence settled in the audience. Hermione stepped out of her thoughts and looked up at the master of ceremonies who was staring at her. It didn't take her longer to understand that this was the time she had to make her vows. Here it was now, when her future was being set. Ron looked at her fearfully. He had probably already said "yes" and was waiting for her to do the same.

She took a deep breath, taking all her courage to open her mouth, and as she was about to seal her fate, someone stood up behind her. The reflection of a brown man leaving the room appeared on the mirror near the altar. The woman thought at first she was hallucinating but her heart was of a different opinion and began a raging race in her chest.

When Draco sat in that room, he came to honour her. He knew it was going to hurt, but he was there by the humblest respect he had to her marriage. He was happy for her because she seemed to have moved on after all she had to overcome, because of him.

The young man had come under the appearance of another, because he would never have shown himself, out of fear of making her suffer again. But when he saw scars returning to his hands, he knew that the polyjuice potion had begun to fail and had preferred to get up and leave.

Hermione gasped in surprise. She turned quickly, but the man was gone. It was an illusion. An illusion that seemed so real. She glanced at Ron whose face had begun to look pale. She looked at the master of ceremonies, then the assembly. No one seemed to have seen the person who had left. She was hallucinating, it was simply not possible. Tears began to flow down her cheeks. The redhead's face distorted under incomprehension and helplessness as the murmurs and stupor seized the audience.

The young woman delivered, through her eyes drowned in salt water, an apologetic look to Ron and stepped away from the platform, under the exclamations of the public. If she had fantasized all that, she was probably being considered as the most impolite bride in wedding history and as she walked slowly down the aisle, she was being shouted at by her friends. No one understood what she was doing.

The witch finally reached the row from where she had seen the man get up. There was nothing, except a pair of black gloves. She held out a trembling hand and grabbed it. And as she brought it to her face, the intoxicating scent that had, for eight years, contributed to her pain, rose to her head. She had to lean on the bench to avoid falling to the ground when a sob tore through her body. She began to cry more intensely, unable to stop, because the suffering was too much.

She turned to the people still stunned by what was happening. She turned her head to Blaise, raising her weak, flickering arm. She tried to say something, but the words could not come out, broken in her voice. The half-breed got up, drawing eyes toward him. He approached the young woman and she held out her hand.

"I'm not crazy," she murmured, not loud enough for him to hear.

"I didn't hear," he answered softly, taking what she gave to him.

"Tell me I'm not crazy," she repeated loudly in a beseeching tone.

The Slytherin looked at the pair of gloves and said, with a voice broken by his own emotion, "It's not possible, Hermione. Calm down and go back to Ron, please."

She glared at him because he couldn't just tell her that. She pushed him away and took the gloves. Turning her back on him, she walked through the door. And as she pushed it, Ron, who had remained frozen near the altar so far, shouted her name. The whole assembly looked at him, his livid face and his body so dejected that it could have been broken into a thousand pieces.

Hermione was on the stoop, in tears, scanning the horizons. She saw in the gravel alley a vague shape that was walking towards the big gate that delineated the property. She had to wipe her eyes several times to clearly distinguish a man turning at the corner of the driveway. She had lost sight of him, but she hadn't dreamed, she was not crazy. It was his cologne escaping from the black gloves that she held tightly in her hand. His cologne. She called him, but her voice broke in her throat. She ran towards him as everyone left the church, overwhelmed by the events.

Hermione's high-heel made her stumble and suffer. She kept twisting her ankles in the gravel and she preferred to drop her shoes and jump into the grass to continue her run. She ran as fast as her flabby legs allowed it and she managed, after some painful effort, to turn at the corner. She came near the air of Apparition, praying that he had not yet left. A few more steps, the space reserved for departures was visible from the entrance of the stoop and she cast a fearful look at the grouping of people on the steps.

Hermione arrived and in a few seconds, she saw with horror her man begin to turn on himself to Apparate. No, Merlin had been against her since the beginning and she cursed the whole universe. She let out a cry, a cry of torture. She cried out his name, for the first time in years it passed her lips and she did not even know if he had heard it. It might have been too late, he hadn't even seen her coming, and he would surely go home without ever seeing her again. She had seen a ghost, and that shadow had gone away from her. Again.

Draco felt his heart fall from his chest when he heard his name tearing the air. He no longer thought of where he was going, wishing with everything to come back from where he came from. She had seen him, she had called him. But when he felt his feet touch the floor of his living room, he understood. He understood when his whole body broke, pierced by pain. He collapsed to the floor, his shirt tinting red. That's what it was like when you ended up splinched away. He should have focused more. She shouldn't have seen him.

Ron had moved forward, he was walking down the aisle. He knelt down in the gravel, picking up his friend's satin heels. He felt like he was in a nightmare. He had tears in his eyes and he didn't even have the strength to hold them back. And he felt his head exploding, when reality jumped in his face because she had shouted his name. It was the name she had cried for so many years and he had heard every night he had looked after her. A wave of anger overtook him, because it was unfair. It was his day, his wedding, and his wife was stolen from him. His bitter tears came to rest in the dust, a mixture of pain and disgust.

Hermione fell to her knees. He had indeed disappeared. An electric shock pierced her legs and she screamed her pain and sorrow. She could not stand the suffering anymore, already having suffered too much. Her body was going to succumb. She felt broken, fractured in the deepest corners of her soul. The young woman put both her hands on the ground, leaning on her frail arms.

Tears flowed steady and constant along her hollow cheeks. She curled up on herself, shaking with sobs. An eternity seemed to pass. After an indefinite time, she hardly managed to stand on her legs, but managed and began to walk back. She arrived behind the last wall that opened on the alley where everyone was gathered and her whole body refused to go any further. She was dying of fear. What would happen? She could not marry Ron, unable to look the Weasley family in their eyes, unable to explain to the world what she had done.

Sharp gravel was planted in the flesh of her feet, mocking her misfortune a little more. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. She would make the step and return to her friends. She hoped so much he could come back, calling her name. Hermione turned her eyes, but there was obviously no one. So she walked to the driveway, finding Ron again. His face was relieved when he saw her returning alone, but immediately it covered again with a mask of sadness.

When the young woman reached him, she burst into tears, falling to the ground. Still crying, because she felt like the worst woman, having given up the redhead. And now she was comforting herself in his arms, when she must have broken his heart in a thousand pieces because she had believed in an illusion.

He coughed and coughed again. Spitting blood through his mouth and nose, Draco put his hands to his stomach. His whole body began to shake, he was cold and his skin was burning at the same time. Drops of cold sweat covering his forehead flowed down his temples. He was so eager to get up and go back to Hermione. His Hermione, who must have been wondering where he was for so long.

If only he could Apparate and tell her how much he loved her, how sorry he was for making her suffer so much. But no, he was condemned to empty his blood, alone, lying on the floor of his cold living room. The young man felt his heart beating against his chest as he suffered martyrdom. The clock on the wall marked the seconds remaining to live.

With each breath, Draco felt that the organs in his belly were going out, flowing like his elixir of life, between his fingers. He was pressing his wide wound, just to be convinced that he could consider the possibility of having a few more minutes. He felt his face gradually emptying from the rest of its colours. The scars that covered his body became more and more visible, gratifying the painting with an even more sordid shade. He had escaped death, lived through the war, and was going to die alone, bathed in guilt.

Hermione managed to get up, helped by Ron, and they both went back to the rest of the assembly. The young woman had her head down, continuing tirelessly to cry. Unable to look anyone in the eyes, she walked trembling, clinging to the redhead as a lifeboat.

She saw the steps of the reception room and felt herself climb to the front steps. On the ground, her eyes stopped on the black gloves she had dropped some time before. She picked them up and someone behind her whispered, "Hermione no, forget it." She turned so abruptly that it made Ron jump and she probed the people around her with tears.

Hermione didn't know who had spoken, but she felt a dull rage mount in her. No one present here seemed to think that Draco could have returned, that he could be alive. They didn't believe it and it made her crazy. She put her eyes on Harry, then on Blaise, and she exploded.

"I can't believe it," she said. "I can't believe you've all given up! Draco was your friend too, your best friend, and you're convinced he's dead!

"Hermione, calm..." Harry began.

"I'm very calm!" She screamed. "You disgust me, all of you! I'm not crazy, just because I kept believing. I continue to hope and I saw him. I am sure, I saw him! He was there, but he Apparated, and those are his gloves! Isn't it, Blaise? Those are his gloves, aren't they? TELL ME!"

"Hermione, I wish I could believe it as much as you do, but you have to forget him," whispered the half-breed in a voice that was broken in the depths of his being.

The witch saw red, unable to believe he was telling him that. She cursed herself for a moment to forget that she was exactly a witch and waved her wand out of her corset.

The world around her suddenly moved away.

"Mione, look at me," Harry began, approaching with his hand reappearing from the inside pocket of his jacket. "None of us here wants this to go wrong, so you should put away your wand and everyone will calm down."

The woman took a look at the scene, suspiciously watching all the people around her, who had also pulled out their wands.

A wave of fear overwhelmed her. She couldn't understand why they didn't believe her, why she had the impression that everyone thought she was crazy. She raised her arm to defend herself from an illusory threat, but the real threat was only her and her derailing thoughts. Then, a spell of stupefaction struck her, freezing her destroyed body.

It was black, and cold, and hard. It was hard to endure suffering without ever being able to rest. It was hard to die. Because the only pause he could take meant he would never open his eyes again. So that was why he forced himself to look at the grey ceiling until his eyes burned and blurred. Draco was dying for real and it was horribly painful. He had the impression that hours had passed since he had returned home, when only a few insignificant minutes had passed.

Yes, it was hard to die alone. The viscous, hot blood kept flowing, drowning the young man's trembling body. The endless past seven years in the hands of Death Eaters were too much. And yet, every time he thought he was going to leave, he had imagined everything. But true death seems abstract to the one who doesn't know it. For Draco now, nothing seemed more concrete.

He coughed, spitting blood, again and again. He felt his head falling down into the void. It was the end. Then Draco gently released the pressure of his hand on his belly, exposing the gaping hole in his stomach. And he closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he saw her, approaching, her tender face. She sat down beside him and took his hand, holding it tightly to give him strength. She whispered to him sweet, sweet things that warmed his heart. She was there for him, so he would not die alone.

And finally, in a last breath, the icy black replaced this peaceful image. The last pulsations of his heart are for her, as are his last thoughts, and his last word. Draco Malfoy is dead. Again.


End file.
